


Tattling to Templars

by Kimiko93



Series: Not Cut Out For This - The Misadventures of Arenya Trevelyan [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: A lot - Freeform, About stuff, Awkwardness, Blood Magic, Demons, Ethical Debate, Gen, Like, Lots of awkwardness, Mages vs Templars, Mentions Cullen x Amell, They just talk, fun stuff, lots of swearing, no really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2018-02-09 07:02:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1973388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kimiko93/pseuds/Kimiko93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Inquisitor, a word.” </p>
<p>Arenya Trevelyan tensed. This was supposed to be a quiet evening, away from all the madness and from all those people she was suddenly supposed to lead. And really, after all she’d done ever since the fucking sky had torn open and demons had flooded the world and something had chosen her of all people to save the world, didn't she deserve at least one goddamn peaceful evening to herself?</p>
<p>Apparently not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tattling to Templars

“Inquisitor, a word.”

Arenya Trevelyan tensed. This was supposed to be a quiet evening, away from all the madness and from all those people she was suddenly supposed to lead. And really, after all she’d done ever since the fucking sky had torn open and demons had flooded the world and something had chosen her of all people to save the world, didn't she deserve at least one goddamn peaceful evening to herself?

Apparently not.

"Knight-Captain," she addressed her unexpected visitor with his former title. Addressing big men in armor by their titles both came easy to her and was a reflex she had developed quite fast during her years at the circle.

The Fereldan Circle, for the most part.

Which made not addressing this particular person by his actual name all the more vital. Though she had only been at the Fereldan Circle after he had already... _Left_ , people there had still... _Talked_ about him. Though from what little interaction they'd had ever since he'd join her little... Inquisition or whatever they called themselves now, she'd neither seen the young boy allegedly absolutely smitten with the Hero of Ferelden (to be) of all people, nor the trigger-happy mage hater he was supposed to have become after shit had hit the fan at the Fereldan Circle, a few years before she had been brought there.

Right now, he didn't even look like his stern, I-have-seen-some-shit kind of paternal-ish stick in the mud self, and instead was fixated on her little crafting table with an intense gaze that was somewhere between hungry and forlorn. Huh. It wasn't like she was handling wyvern venom for some fancy drugs here, she was just making lyrium potions for... Ooooh.

"Did you, ah, need anything?" She asked, trying to subtly gesture at the small amount of lyrium dust she had left and utterly failing at the subtlety part.

Templar of questionable reputation or not, and no matter how disapproving or scary he seemed at times, he was still part of the team, so if he required some form of... Assistance to be in form, she'd do what was in her power to help him. After all, if it hadn’t been for him, she'd probably lost all of those people who insisted on being her troops already; providing him with some, ah, help of her own was the least she could do to repay him, really. The short-term consequences of lyrium withdrawal were more detrimental to their cause than the long-term effects the stuff had on none-mage, after all. And she did need everyone in her entourage to be at their best, and if that required a little help via substance abuse, well... It's not like she wasn't drinking the stuff herself, so who was she to judge?

"No," he said slowly and tore his gaze away from the glittering powder. "No, I came here to talk to you about what you did today."

Oh, joy. Because she really wanted to have that conversation with an ex-Templar of all people. And tonight of all possible times when they could have done this.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she tried to delay the inevitable. "Could you be more specific?"

His trademark I-have-seen-some-shit-sigh and the equally trademarked way he scratched the back of his head while very pointedly not looking at the lyrium dust on the table suggested he wasn't wild about having this conversation, either.

"Well, someone told me... I mean, it has come to my attention..." He desperately searched for his authoritative voice and general composure.

Arenya wouldn't have thought that a little bit of lyrium dust was all it took to knock that out of him. Usually he was the epitome of easy authority and composure. Like about half the people she was supposed to be commanding here. Why was she in charge again? Stupid glowy hand.

While she was busy mentally cursing her luck for the umpteenth time, the former Knight-Captain had managed to collect himself and the authority was back on.

"Inquisitor, would you please tell me, in your own words, what happened at the lake shore today?" He demanded, now completely focused on her. Well then.

"We saved a lot of innocent lives today, that's what happened," she informed him, trying to use the same cold and detached tone that screamed 'I am in charge here, do not question me!' that he had used, and that she really needed to use more often if she was to run this... Inquisition.

Unfortunately, her verbal assailant was not impressed.

"And how did that come to be?" He asked, even more sternly. The bastard totally knew the answers already and just wanted to make her say it, didn't he? Well, he wasn't going to get what he wanted to hear out of her so easily.

"We came upon a fight between innocent people and some rogue Templars," she summarized neatly. "I would not let those people be slaughtered, so we intervened and saved their lives. Simple as that."

She got another deep, deep sigh out of the ex-Templar-whose-name-she-didn't-want-to-think-about.

"It is never that simple," he informed her, massaging a spot above the bridge of his nose, apparently attempting to fight off a migraine. She might have offered to help with the pain if not for the fact that she didn't want him in her room to begin with and he was an ex-Templar and would probably reject any offer of magical help anyway. "Am I correct in assuming these people were fugitive mages?"

"Well, considering the state of the circles, it's hard not to be a fugitive right now, isn't it?" She pointed out, a little harsher than intended. Oh no, she was starting to sound like a snappy teenager. Abort, abort. "But yes, some of them were, though it's not like the Templars really care about that anymore when raiding villages, do they?" Critical failure to abort. Abandon ship now.

"I am not going to deny that these renegade Templars are an absolute atrocity by all accounts," her unbidden guest admitted.

"Well, personally I'd say that Templars in general are known for their atrocities," she quipped, hoping to get rid of him just by simply annoying him to no end. Truth be told, she had met her share of decent Templars during her time at the circle. She did get their former function and held no personal grudges - well, for a few Templars she did, but those had been rather nasty - it's just that the whole institution had been fucked up to begin with.

Well, and after its abolishment the world was fucked up even more, what do you know.

"This is also not something I want to argue about right now," the former Knight-Captain informed her calmly, to her dismay. Dramatically storming out would have been her preferred reaction. She'd just essentially insulted him and everything he used to stand for, dammit!

"Then what exactly did you come here to talk about?" She asked, growing impatient with him, but unwilling to get to the point herself.

"Did you, or did you not see one of these mages perform blood magic?" He finally asked.

"We did," she admitted, sitting up straighter. "Who told you?"

"That is unimportant," he tried to avoid her question. "And you - "

" _Who told you_?" She asked again, putting all of the authority she could muster into that statement. And also a good amount of simple rage; yes, things had changed, but still, one of her companions tattling to a fucking Templar about this just touched a nerve with her. World ending or no, this just wasn't done. Especially with the world ending! They had bigger problems than some blood mage on the run who had wanted to save her family and was now indebted to them for her life and would definitely not be harmful to their cause. Seriously.

Cullen's resolve seemed to waver for a moment there, before he put on the I've-seen-some-shit-and-I'm-in-charge-face again. She really needed to get the hang of authoritative speech and demeanor.

"Does it really matter who told me?" He asked, his voice softer than his face.

"It does to me," she said, putting effort into sounding not soft at all. "Tells me who not to take along to save me from conversations like this in the future."

"Inquisitor, please," he insisted. "Just let me say my piece, and..."

"No," she interrupted him again, standing up. Bad enough he came here to second-guess a decision of hers he hadn't even been present or asked advice for, no, now he was directly disobeying orders, too. Gaaah. She might have no clue about pretty much everything when it came to authority or leadership, but something told her that this was not how it was done. "Was it Vivienne? She did look ready to freeze me on the spot when it happened, too. I bet it was Vivienne."

"If you must know," the ex-Templar finally relented, visibly pained by her antics and again massaging that spot above his nose. "Nobody told me directly. I overheard the Iron Bull, who was deep in his cups, fretting over it, after Solas explained the connection between blood magic and demons to him, and you know how he gets when demons are mentioned..."

Oh boy, did she ever. The Iron Bull never made any secret of his, ah, issues with demons. Which always seemed comical to her; if you were haunted by demons every time you went to sleep for a few years, they kinda lost all their inherent scariness. Well, at least the ones in her dreams who constantly wanted to make deals with her. The ones she got to fight in the, ah, maybe flesh wasn't the best word for it, but those, those were plenty scary. And revolting. And smelled bad.

"In any case," the man who had come to her bedroom uninvited continued. "That is not what I came here to tell you."

"No, you're here to throw a hissy-fit about how I could let a blood mage go, aren't you?" She snapped at him, having had enough of this by now. She just wanted to get back to her crafting and then go to bed early, pretty please. "If so, please note that I do not regret this decision, and should the opportunity present itself, I will do it again. So if you have a problem with that, kindly shut up about it or leave."

He neither threw a hissy-fit nor did he leave. Instead, he just sighed again and sort of averted her gaze for a moment.

"You hail from the Fereldan Circle, do you not?" He then changed the topic for some reason.

"Starkhaven, originally," Arenya answered promptly, not really knowing why. "Spent a year on the run after that one burned down, we almost made it to some Avvar tribe in the Frostbacks before the Templars got us. Fucking Frostbacks..."

"But then they took you to the Fereldan Circle," he brought that up again.

"Yes," she conceded. "It was the closest at hand and short on members anyways."

"Right," Cullen nodded. "Did they tell you why?"

Oh, boy, did they ever.

"Some idiot thought unleashing a bunch of demons there was a good idea, as far as I've heard," she said, putting it as bluntly as she could in the hopes of maybe triggering something in the ex-Templar who had most definitely been at the scene back then. In fact, most of the stories she had heard focused either on his vacation into la la land after being tortured in some way and/or the romantic rescue the Hero of Ferelden had staged to save him. And like, everyone else to get some help defeating that blight of hers. But somehow people hand found the aspect of the Hero saving the man uncomfortably shifting from one foot to the other in front of her way more interesting to tell.

"And do you know how he accomplished that?" What the hell was this guy even up to, giving her lessons on demonic possession 101? As if she didn't already have Solas, Vivienne and Dorian lecturing her on their individual philosophies regarding that particular topic 24/7. Sometimes Arenya managed to escape by pitting them against each other. That was kind of fun.

"Well, they didn't really hand out instruction manuals," she answered. "But, you know. Demons. They come a-knocking occasionally. They aren't exactly known for their subtlety, either. So I guess the whole demonic possession part is pretty straight forward."

"So you know how someone becomes a blood mage," her lecturer finally turned this conversation back on a track she could follow. She shrugged.

"Well, again, they don't teach that in class," she said. "But demons are also pretty straight forward in what they offer. The smart ones, at least. Those get specific. The weaker ones just say something ominous about power and damnation or something, not even worth listening to."

He seemed way less scandalized by her revealing these tidbits about her night terrors than she'd hoped he would be. Truly, telling someone who had been tortured to the brink of insanity by demons once and then had spent almost a decade in the most demon-infested place prior to the breach that you regularly received visits from these fuckers should have made him reconsider his life choices. Or at least the choice to lecture her in her own bedroom. But no. All he did was swallow and scratch the back of his head very briefly.

"I did not realize you were so... Knowledgeable on the subject of demons," he then said, his voice only trembling a tiny little bit. She waved her hand around. The one that got green and glowy a lot.

"Turns out having the key to their gateway to this world in my hand kind of makes me a desirable target," she explained. "There's a reason I spend so much time with Solas, and it's not because he's the most exciting person to be around."

"I apologize, then." He made a stiff little bow. "I just wanted to make sure that you are _aware_ that the person you let go today had made a deal with a demon and were ready to deal with the possible consequences."

"Yes, I'm sure that's all you wanted to tell me." She rolled her eyes, but was somewhat pleased that she got him to back off. "Completely without the sermons how all blood mages are to be skinned alive because the Maker hates their guts and all that."  

She could almost pinpoint the exact moment Cullen the Templar started rearing his unfortunately not that ugly head. For a minute there, there was something in his eyes that almost made her reach for her staff in apprehension of one of these nasty Templar smites. Not that it would do her much good once all the magic was knocked out of her, but hey. She could still stick him with the pointy end.  
Then the sudden fury that had overcome him left him just as suddenly, and all that was left was the cold, composed military advisor she infinitely preferred over anything else at most times, since that guy was so much unlike the Cullen she had heard so much about, it was easy to pretend they were completely separate people. But right now, the sudden shift and the sheer amount of self-control that had to have taken him were kind of scary to behold.

"Regardless of your stand on religion," he started with a steely voice that made her shiver somehow. "These teachings are there for a reason." He paused, before adding, quite indignantly: "And there's nothing in the Chant about skinning people alive."

"That was a joke," she informed him flatly.

"It was in bad taste," he said. She rolled her eyes.

"So now that you have thrown your hissy-fit about this, are you going to leave me alone?" She asked, and immediately felt like punching herself for sounding like a complete brat. Gah. That's what happens if you have to spend your teenage years on the run or locked up. The impertinent behavior crept up on you once you were supposed to be in charge. Blergh. Not the best way to get authority.

"I apologize, that was unworthy," she sighed, eyes closed while trying hard to find the right words. "I just do not appreciate being dragged into ethical conversations and second-guessed in my decisions when I'm off guard and in my private quarters. I've had a long day and do not believe this conversation will lead us anywhere, so I see no point in continuing it. Good night." There, all better.

Unfortunately, Cullen did not seem to think so.

"I have seen both sides at their very best, and their very worst," he said, again with an intensity that made her shudder. "Do not dismiss what I have to say out of hand simply because you don't agree with my world view. Good night."

And with a stiff bow, he left her bedroom, feathery cape swooshing after him dramatically. Arenya sighed deeply and let herself fall onto her bed. What the hell had gotten into her? This was no way to assert herself as the leader of this thing. Not that she wanted to, but she didn't want people walking all over her, either. Or to make history as that little girl with the glowing hand that might have saved the world had she not been too busy being a brat to Templars.

Not that she didn't stand by her point – helping that poor woman and not killing her for wanting to protect her family had been one of the best things she'd done ever since shit had hit the fan and she had assumed her role as the chosen one. Blood magic was a tool, nothing more, and if one used it to do good, it could be a good thing. And that little doubt gnawing at her was simply the result of a decade of chantry indoctrination and getting yelled at by a big, angry Templar.

Just that he wasn't that big, had only been angry very briefly, had quit being a Templar and didn't even yell at her. Except for his bit of chantry indoctrination, he had attempted to respectfully reason with her and gaaaah she was such an idiot.

She hugged a pillow to her chest and stared at the fancy ceiling of her bedroom. Really, she needed to learn how to handle herself better. And usually, she did. She did endure all her companion's differing opinions on things and finding compromises that at least had not made anyone quit the Inquisition just yet. There was just _something_ about... _Cullen_ that unnerved her. Stupid gossipy hens at the circle. Ugh.

Hopefully this would be the last time he'd seek her out this way. Oh Maker, and hopefully these things didn't come back to bite her in the ass. Then she'd have to admit that she'd been wrong about this, since that was what grown-ups did, and who knew what that woman could do now with... Nope. No, no, no, no, no. She stood by her decision. No second guessing by Ex-Templars, First Enchanters, giant horny guys who ran for the hills when they heard to word demon, and most definitely not by herself. That way lay madness. And she really didn't need any more of that.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So I picture the Inquisitor in this as young. Very, very young. Like, 18-20-ish, which is why she's a bit of a brat. She's been at the Fereldan Cirlce from 9:33 - 9:40 Dragon, which was more autonomous than most circles too, since Davinia Amell asked for it. Before that, she's been at the Starkhaven Cirlce from ca. 9:29 to 9:31 when it burned down and she and a group of friends managed to get away. And I think she was probably born in like, 9:20. That makes her 20 on the dot. Cullen should be in his early thirties, btw. 
> 
> Yes this might develop into a Cullen x Inquisitor series. Whoever would have guessed.


End file.
